I’ve always known the address of the Tiny Totts as 748 High Road. The only team to have played football in White Hart Lane (as I boringly remind everyone) is Wood Green Town, who played about a quarter of a mile from where I grew up as a child.
Town were born around 1885 and finally packed up sometime around the 1980s and I still have a couple of programmes of games I saw there. At the dirty end of the Lane there is this other club playing in the High Street.
Actually I didn’t know until last night that the proper address of the Tiny Totts is Bill Nicholson Way, 748 High Road. How sweet.
Anyway 19,084 people turned up which is not bad for a youth match. The highest attendance at an FA Youth Cup game ever, was (as you will know) 38,187 for the semi final, Arsenal against Manchester B at the Ems in March 2007. That was rather amusing because the “Authorities” clearly only expected about 8000, and so got all their security and parking restrictions completely wrong. Oh how we laughed.
The idea of this competition is that kiddies between the age of 15 and 18 on 31 August of the current season can kick a ball around a bit. We had Jack Wilshere playing, which gives an idea of just how high the standard can be, and, as you will know, we won 3-1.
What surprised me, when I looked it up, was that we ain’t won the thing since the start of the century – we took it in 2000 and 2001. So obviously time to get it back again. Still I suppose the Lord Wenger generally plays his reserve youth team in the cup, and the first youth team in the reserve league.
Still the fact that 19,000 will turn up for a game adds to the suggestion that including Arsenal reserves or youth team in the 4th division or the Conference would
give the lads meaningful practice
increase the number of people going to see games at that level.
On other planets West Iceland United find out today if their parent company has gone bust, or whether it has another three months to arrange a sale. If the parent Icelandic bank goes down today, then WHU must be sold now – if not, the final final deadline is 3 months on. How droll that a municipal court in Iceland decides the fate of a diddly widdly team in eastern London.
Seemingly five idiots have expressed an interest in buying the club but none have really got that close, and all are looking for the price to drop.
What is screwing the market is that at the moment there is no end of lower league clubs for sale, and Liverpool, Everton and WHU in the top league. Additionally Newcastle has been for sale off and on, and Manchester Arab has been sold twice in recent years. KGB Fulham also got snapped up by someone a while back I seem to remember, and several other owners wouldn’t mind finding a way out.
So the price is being pushed down and down. West Iceland also have the huge problem of the debt to Sheffield Untidy over the Tevez thing, and the amount they will have to pay (somewhere between £5 million offered by WHU and £45 million asked for by Sheffield) is due to be resolved soon.
Funny ol’ game.
© Tony Attwood, Planet Zog, 2009.
ARG! my eyes! you become more obsessed with blueness by the day tony.